


One Wedding Too Many

by hockeyhawk



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Cheating, M/M, Minor Character Death, four weddings and a funeral au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-02
Updated: 2018-06-02
Packaged: 2019-05-14 22:38:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14778599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hockeyhawk/pseuds/hockeyhawk
Summary: It's probably Patrick's age that means he's always at a goddam wedding. It would be a hell of a lot less complex if he hadn't slept with Jonathan Toews at the last one.





	One Wedding Too Many

**Author's Note:**

> Closely based on the movie plot, including canon infidelity and minor character death. Some dialogue taken or adapted from the original.
> 
> Jonny is still a hockey player; Patrick didn't make it. Everyone else is an OC, though I've reused some names.

Patrick isn’t as much of a fuck up as he appears. Or, that’s what he’s telling himself as he barrels into the wedding, later than late. Everyone is looking. Everyone who knows Patrick is _laughing_ , and Jesus, why does he do this? It’s like four blocks from his apartment, and he’s barely here before the bride. 

What’s worse is, he’s across the aisle from the bride’s party, and fuck his life absolutely to everything, there’s Jonathan Toews opposite. Patrick sits on his goddam hands and tries to look cool and calm and not like he knows anything about the disaster of his hair. 

Which, let him tell you, is not easy when facing the best one nighter of your goddam life. 

*

Patrick’s life holds a ridiculous number of weddings these days. It’s his age, probably. Seems like everyone’s staring down the barrel of thirty and hooking up with whoever the fuck they can wrangle out of the stream of passing humanity. Not his _friends_ , exactly, but everyone in his wider circle. They enter this weird parallel universe of wedding planning, and then there’s a day where they blow twenty grand on an oddly lifeless event that feels like every other version of a wedding that Patrick has been stuck with this past two years. 

So although Patrick is technically part of the groom’s party today, and in theory may have some duties he agreed to perform for Timmy and his beautiful wife-to-be, he can pretty much zone out during the whole boring ceremony and think about Jonny. 

Jonny looks good. It’s early in the season, and he’s thick with muscle. More so than when they first met, just a month after playoffs at an early summer wedding, when he was fined down to too-thin, and the scar on his lip stood out too proud. But Patrick wanted him then, and he wants him still. 

It’s not just fame, okay? Jonny is gorgeous, he’s famously a good dude, but more importantly, Patrick _liked_ him, that one time they met. Met, hooked up, whatever. Besides, he’s not Patrick’s first encounter with the wonderful world of hockey stardom. Okay, so Patrick never made it to the big show. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have connections. His buddy Kevin grew up with Patrick Sharp, and Sharpy was one of Kevin’s groomsmen. Plus there’s a few people that still remember Patrick from London days, and they throw him the occasional bone. There’s apparently enough of a crossover between the Riordan family and the Blackhawks that half the team turns out for friends of Kevin’s too. Jonathan Toews is gonna be popping up at weddings till Patrick goes totally bald and runs out of unmarried friends. Which is just great. 

Or. Or, it is great. It felt pretty great last time, at Kevin’s summer wedding. When the sky was blue, the flowers were wilting, and Patrick danced with the captain of the Blackhawks, the most swagger and handsomest dude on the dancefloor, grinding up hard while his friends cheered him on. And when Jonny slipped him a room number, so that Patrick knew he wasn’t imagining the silent offer. And when Patrick blew off Timmy and Britt’s plan involving whiskey and seeing in the dawn to go creeping along hotel corridors to 1046, never quite believing it was real. When Jonny opened the door, and stepped back to let him in, and then stood, almost at a loss, till Patrick grabbed him by the belt loops and pulled him back to dancefloor levels of closeness, and-

And Patrick’s getting a hard-on just remembering it, which is not a good look in dress pants. He moves his gaze to just past Jonny’s shoulder, where there’s a weird wedding hat waggling as its wearer sits boredly through the vows. The pink feather and silver flower thing is uninteresting enough to take Patrick’s mind off going to his knees for Jonny, and that moment when Jonny pulled him off and said, “No, no, I want to- Is it okay to fuck you?” in this combination of confidence and pleading that told a whole story about how often Jonny got to do this.

Nope, the weird hat isn’t enough to prevent him disgracing himself. Patrick drops his eyes to the order of service and re-reads the whole introduction bit about their inalienable, sparkling love that Timmy couldn’t stop Manda from writing, even though it made Patrick howl the first time he read it. His dick finally gets the message that there’s no Blackhawk-fucking on the agenda right now, and Patrick makes it through the service respectably. To a future where he hopes there is at least the possibility of Blackhawk-fucking, in fact. Okay, Jonny didn’t use his number, but neither did Patrick try to make it more than the once. And he’s definitely not indifferent now. Every time Patrick risks a glance that way, Jonny’s staring at him. 

It’s a pleasant buzz to go into the reception with, anyway. It lasts maybe four and a half minutes, till Jonny catches him by the elbow and says, “Patrick-“

“Yes?” Oh man, Patrick flinches internally at the speed and the hope he packs into that syllable. 

It goes to waste, immediately, as Jonny replies, sweet and a little bashful, “I wanted you to meet someone. This is Hélène. My fiancée.”

She’s beautiful. Slender and yet stacked, dressed with style (even her hat, which is the one with the feather and flowers, turns out to look amazing when you’re not using it as an anti-aphrodisiac). Her hair is perfect. She’s fucking taller than Patrick. 

Patrick hates her. He hates Jonny. Fuck everything. “Congratulations,” he says. “This is new?”

Hélène smiles, and murmurs something about it being the right time. Her voice is great. She says something briefly to Jonny in French, which is the final touch of perfect-for-Toews that Patrick didn’t need to hear, and moves along. Jonny turns to follow her, but adds quickly, “Sorry. I didn’t know you’d be here. But-“ He shrugs, “This is what it is, now. You understand.” His eyes are very blank, and he was staring at Patrick throughout that whole fucking ceremony, but he is engaged to a beautiful woman now, and that’s how it is. 

“Okay,” says Patrick. “Cool, cool. Okay. Cool.” He is not stealth. He stops even trying, and turns his back, walking smack into Bryan after fifteen blinded steps. Luckily Bryan is neither subtle nor perceptive, just rights him and takes him along to the cash bar, which is about the best possible place for Patrick right now. 

It helps, a little. And he’s so glad of the three shots he downs before the lunch gong sounds, before he sees the table settings. His only sorrow is that he didn’t just walk right out of the whole wedding party when all the fun went out of the day. But by the time he truly realises the horror, he’s already seated at the table where he’ll spend the next hour or six. 

Patrick has only slept with five people at this table. Okay it’s five out of only seven people other than Patrick. Two of them are women, from his denial phase. One of them is Tony, married to one of those women, which is real cosy. One is Randy, now married to one of the other guys (Matthew - who, hallelujah, Patrick has never even seen before, much less fucked, he is so glad to see him he considers proposing). Seriously, Patrick has in his life slept with just nine people, how are they all at this table?

The fifth person whom Patrick has fucked and who is haunting him at this table of hell is Sean. Sean looks pale and intense. He has panda eyes and an air of perpetual pain. It’s been eight months since their breakup. Since their third breakup, that is. He can’t still think Patrick’s the one. Can he? 

Apparently he can. After the wedding breakfast, during which Patrick’s seamy past is fully shared with the entire table, including the final person, a woman he has never met and who clearly thinks he’s a shitheel behind the laughter, that’s when Sean makes his move. “Patty, “ he says, possibly not only because Patrick hates it but whatever. It’s a bad start, even without the intense tone and the hint of tears.

Looking back, Patrick guesses the whole miserable conversation barely lasts three minutes, but he feels like it flays him, on what was already one of the most unenjoyable days he could have imagined. He’s not a bad guy, really. He just- He and Sean aren’t going to be together forever, and that’s okay. It doesn’t mean he’s a failure of an emotional being. He knows this; his friends have worked through it with him more than once. It just, at this exactly shitty moment, doesn’t feel like something he can believe. Certainly not once Sean has taken his noble expression and teary eyes off to the bathroom, followed by the gaze of Patrick’s entire tableful of recrimination and half their mutual friends. Even Bryan sighs and shakes his head, like _Patty, we’re supposed to be past this shit._ Fuck his life. 

They are supposed to be getting coffee and moving on to another standup reception-slash-photography session before the dancing gets started. But at this point, he really, honestly can’t. 

“I need to be where people are, like, not,” he says. And he means it. He pity-whines till Kevin gives him a spare room key from the bridal party and he intends to hide for at least two hours before making an appearance at the dancing, so that everyone knows he’s all good except for too much booze or some pride-saving shit like that. He could go home, but he’s not actually running away. He just- He needs a bolthole. 

Except that right opposite his hideaway door, what does he find? He finds goddam Jonathan Toews, just exiting another bedroom. And Patrick’s not certain how it happens but they are kissing and then tearing at one another’s clothes and being fucking LOUD, and just fucking in fact. This is pretty much how it was the first time. Not too much talking. Just _need_. The taste of Jonny’s dick, uncut and sweetly curved. The deep stretch of his hip, knee hooked over Jonny’s shoulder, as Jonny pressed slowly, in and inner, gentle in intend but insistent in pressure, exactly the way Patrick likes to be mastered. The gasping, half-giggle half-groan they both let out, after, as Jonny draws out, softening and yet neither of them wanting him to go. 

This time, the aftermath is more silent. After a while, uncomfortably so. Patrick’s sort of afraid to let the rest of the world in. He could ask about cheating, and call Jonny out, which would be righteously hypocritical. He could offer his number, and a whole nother kind of grovelling. But really, he knows this isn’t worth the talking. He got to fuck this guy, twice, and it’ll be a secret forever. Great. Where the fuck did he put his underwear?

Jonny says, “You don’t have to go.”

“You know, I really, really do.” Patrick locates his boxers, with relief, and slides into them. Unwashed, and lube-sticky, but fuck it. He should be getting gone. Dress pants, creased. Sock… other sock. 

“I’m sorry,” says Jonny.

Which- “No.” Patrick irritably flicks his belt through its loops and in his irritation pulls it one hole too tight for comfort. Damn. “It’s fine. You probably fuck groupies all the time. You’re getting married, and that’s cool. I’m not gonna stick around, mess that up for you. I’ll just get out of here, pretend it never happened. Like before.”

“I wish it wasn’t this way,” Jonny says. With possible genuine regret, but also not actually fixing anything about this shitty, shitty situation. Patrick keeps right along getting dressed. (Why cufflinks, seriously? They are _impossible_.)

Jonny sighs, and reaches for Patrick’s wrist. The scarred one, that he kissed last time, when Patrick told him about the injury, when he thought they were really connecting, maybe. But this time he’s just wrangling Patrick’s cuff. “It’s what it is,” he says. “And not what you think. We’re not cheating on anyone. Hélène’s great. Really. And she knows what this is too. She’s helping me out.” 

Patrick ignores the nobler part of himself and spits, “In exchange for a zillion dresses and pap shots and cold cash, yeah?”

Jonny drops his wrist, cuff perfectly fastened. He grabs for the other, a little faster than needed. Irritated, now. “Don’t. I need this. I need my person, at Hawks events. You know that. It’s how media works. I have to think about my career.”

Patrick knows. Jonny’s person would be a vital accessory on Hawks TV. Skating cutely. Popping out a couple of serious-eyed kids to look cute in turn. Jonny’s right. Patrick can’t do any of that. He can’t even skate cute-badly, it’s his wrist that’s fucked, not his legs. He still skates like a dude who nearly made it to the big show. 

“So, we could still-“ Jonny starts. “I mean, I wanted, last time-“ He looks on the verge of having an emotion. A really attractive, tempting emotion. “Hélene says she’s fine with whoever I want to get with. But I have to be careful. And fucking around…. I mean, I’ve done it. A lot. But it isn’t good, you know?” He looks at Patrick, appealingly. “I mean, you’re great. I think we could-“

“No.” Patrick shakes his head, pulls his hand free and grabs his jacket. Preparing to get out of there. “That’s not who I am. And I don’t think you are, either.” It’s kind of horrible, actually, if he thinks about it too long. What’s Jonny’s proposing. How Jonny’s seriously going to live. It could all get really bad, if he thinks about it too long. 

But Patrick’s not that guy. Why face the big emotions if you don’t have to? And anyway, he’s pretty much a puck bunny in this situation, he does not get to have big emotions about a couple of quick fucks. Right? “So, I guess you’ll be inviting Kevin and the guys to your wedding?” he says, instead. Anything to change the subject. Kinda. Also, he has seen a chirping chance which he doesn’t intend to lose. “I’m going to look at your wedding registry.” He actually smiles, because it’s true. “I am going to sneer. I bet you have horrible taste.” 

Jonny looks at Patrick’s cufflinks. Which are classy as fuck, thank you. Nobody else has links this big. Or colourful. He looks back up at Patrick, still sitting naked in the bed they messed up so bad. His big, solemn eyes blink. His nose crinkles. He throws back his head and just laughs. So much that Patrick can’t help but join in. 

Fuck. This doesn’t make walking away any easier. 

Jonny eventually wipes away actual tears of laughter, and says, “You wait. You’ll see. I am classy as fuck. My wedding list is going to be amazing.”

*

Patrick does see. Because Patrick is invited to the fucking wedding. And Bryan knows it. Even Crystal knows it, under her glacial poise, and indicates she fully expects Patrick to attend because one does not reject such an invitation. Apparently Hélène is a big deal in Crystal’s world. Britt and Jenna are invited, because obviously. Toews is a big WoHockey supporter, and he’s making a point. Even Erica. Even Jessica. Everyone Patrick has ever met in his life is invited to this superstar wedding. It’s a little unnerving. It also gives him no goddamn way out of the invitation. 

Except it’s in Manitoba in April, and apparently that is not a reason. Jonny got injured, the Hawks have tanked their season, and everyone’s going to Winnipeg to get drunk and think about something else. 

Fuck it. Patrick considers dropping fifteen big ones on a black glass coffee table supported by a plastic leopard, the most expensively ridiculous item on the wedding list (surely not Jonny’s choice? But also _surely_ not Hélène’s, so…), and sending 100% fake apologies, but sanity prevails. He buys them a Nutribullet - because Jonny’s interviews always get around to the power of juice, the hopeless geek that he is - and gets himself a proper tux and a ticket to the ‘Peg. 

It’s storming when they land. Horrible sleeting rain and occasional thunder. They are all staying in this bland airport motel three miles from the venue. It’s the opposite of exciting. Patrick wonders, again, why exactly he is wasting this weekend on basically torturing himself with the one that got away. 

He knows. It’s that laughter. It’s Jonny bothering to invite his friends so Patrick has some support. And it’s the masochism of wanting to see the moment when Jonny signs himself away on this stupid idea of what the Blackhawks captain has to be. 

The wedding is beautiful. All monochrome and stylish. Very Toews. Nothing Patrick would have pulled off in a million years. Not that he’s thought about it. It’s so stylish, really, that it’s a little depressing. He’s pretty sure he’s projecting, because the motivation for this is unsubtle, but as the event progresses, he realises it’s not. His friends are clustering, a little chill and gloomy, and there’s a group mood that’s a little bleak. 

It’s Britt, typically, that voices it. “I’ve realised,” says Britt, all solemn even though she’s perched up on Jenna’s knee like a wee little kid, “That I only go to the weddings of shitheads. Entitled shitheads. I want to go to the wedding of someone I love. You straights need to catch us up.” And she kisses Jenna, on the nose, smugly. 

So that ends in a shower of chirping and commentary on the Britt-Jenna nuptials, and who exactly might the entitled shitheads in question be. Patrick’s crew are all right. 

They leave singing, in the minivan to take them back to the airport hotel. They’re a little drunk, a lot stupid, and maybe not all the seatbelts are as tightly fastened as they might be. Maybe Britt likes it on Jenna’s knee a little too much. But Winnipeg’s a really safe city, and traffic’s light at this hour. So it’s really dumb bad luck that a huge stag jinks across the highway at the exact worst, least-avoidable moment, and their driver has to stand on the brake. And that although they mostly slump back into their seats after, complaining about the surprise and the bruises they’ll have tomorrow from slamming against the belts and the furniture, Britt doesn’t say anything. Because Britt broke her neck. 

*

It’s so sudden it’s a little surreal, but the bureaucracy actually takes weeks. And then the Porpoises want to make it a thing, and send Britt off right, and that feels better than anything else has since Jenna started screaming. So it’s almost a month after the Toews nuptials that Patrick is standing over a hole in the ground containing the best damn left wing that ever played the women’s game, while Jenna’s broken chokes start to build as the earth rains down on the box that isn’t Britt any more. 

And Patrick looks up, across an open grave, into the eyes of Jonathan Toews. His habitual grim stare looks all too perfect for today. Perfect for the mood, for the leaden sky, for everything they lost. 

When Britt’s buried deep enough in earth and flowers that you can almost forget there’s a coffin down there, Jonny jerks his head, and Patrick walks away from the graveside. He swipes at his nose, aware he looks a total mess. Jonny passes him a handkerchief. An actual cloth one, as if Patrick’s gonna blow his nose on linen. “I’m really sorry,” says Jonny. 

“Not your fault,” is all Patrick can say. Though in his inner monologue lately he’s maybe accused Jonny of killing Britt with his stupid PR insistence on having the women’s game represented at his stupid PR wedding. But that’s bullshit, and not Jonny’s fault. Nothing is Jonny’s fault. 

“I wish it had never happened,” is what Jonny says next, and Patrick can’t really parse that. Obviously he wishes Britt wasn’t dead, everyone does. But- 

“Where’s Hélène?” If this is a duty visit, or more PR, she should definitely be here. And if it’s real, she should be even more here. 

Jonny shrugs. “I think- I think I made a really stupid mistake. I thought it would work out. But…” And then he leaves it all trailing. Answering nothing. He’s staring at Jenna, at the widow of a woman who had the balls to put it all out there, fuck the haters. And he hasn’t brought his trophy wife. But he’s not explaining anything right now. 

Patrick fucks him at the wake. Obviously. In the bedroom set aside for guest coats, and they get come on some fake-fur thing he thinks might belong to Kevin’s wife. And although it’s good, deep and comforting and alive like he needed to feel, he still feels horrible when they’re done. It’s not real. It’s not comfort. It’s sneaky, and stupid, and going nowhere. 

Jonny tries to say something when they’re zipping up. But nothing comes out of his mouth. Patrick finds a word though. The word is, “Enough.” 

*

There is no way Patrick is going to be late for this one. No way. The assembled friends are taking it a little goddam OTT, but it’s good. This matters. This is Patrick’s big day. It has to be perfect. 

Okay, anyone who knows Patrick well, knows that perfect isn’t a big priority for him. But he promised. And after all the fuckups in the way, it does matter. It has to be perfect _for Sean_.

He knows, okay? He knows it’s insane. He knows that Sean is intense, and that there are reasons why they broke up, over and over. But he also knows Sean kept coming back, and Patrick kept welcoming him. And he knows Sean wants him. Publicly, openly, and with all his weird, possessive heart, Sean wants Patrick. It’s been enough for a full year. It’s going to be enough for a lifetime. 

His friends are saying so, anyway. Real supportively. If you listen hard, there’s a weird edge to their conversation, but maybe it’s just wedding-day nerves. Nobody said anything, the whole engagement. They must be okay with it. Surely? 

They are not okay. 

“And you’re saying this now, why?” Patrick asks his sister. His sister who is standing up by him because fuck gender convention, she’s his best friend. But who has also chosen exactly, but _exactly_ seven minutes until the start of the ceremony to point out that Sean is a flaky, obsessive, unhealthily clingy guy who Patrick doesn’t even really like, and who he has fucked over three times already for a variety of totally sound personal reasons. 

“Because we thought you’d wake up,” she says. “We thought you couldn’t possibly go through with this. We thought you’ve never stayed together for longer than six months before. We thought you’d realise, Patrick. That this is the rest of your life, and we think you already know you don’t want to spend it with him.” She looks sorta desperate. 

“For life?” he says. “Like that’s true of any marriage these days. Look at Jonny Toews.” 

The look on her face makes him wish he’d used any other example in the goddam world. But Jonny’s on his mind now, for obvious reasons. Patrick sent him a sympathetic text or two when the press really got into the reasons for the sudden breakdown of his dream marriage. He expected, and received, nothing back except a quick _thanks man_. The embarrassing annulment proceedings that didn’t stay as sealed as they were supposed to. The gossip rag field day after the first whispers went full-voice, and the captain of the Blackhawks was outed in the full glare of North America’s press. You didn’t have to have an unhealthy ongoing interest in Jonny to be aware of this. You didn’t even have to know some of his friends. You really just had to be sentient, and have access to mass communications. It was big, is what Patrick’s saying. 

Sure, it’s a while ago, but it was a hell of a thing. And with the Hawks winning the Cup just two weeks ago, Jonny’s face and personal details have been plastered all over the everything again, reminding everyone of his fucked up emotional life and the absence of anyone on his arm these days. And if you’re thinking about marrying someone for all the wrong reasons, there’s a reason Toews springs to mind. A non-Patrick-centric reason. 

Which is not how Erica’s taking it, apparently. “Stay there!” she hisses, and runs off. Leaving Patrick alone with his uneasy thoughts for five long minutes. 

The celebrant slips in to check on him, tell him his groom has arrived on schedule. (“No need to be nervous!” she says, heartily. Like Sean potentially not turning up today was Patrick’s big worry here.) And eventually Erica is back, with a look that makes him fearful. 

It’s a nice venue, one that Patrick enjoyed picking out. The ranks of friends and family are looking great as he makes his entrance. He promised Sean he’d go first, be waiting for him by the celebrant, and it’s not something he regrets. Even Jenna is smiling, though she’s wearing something a little more subdued than it would have been before Britt died. Patrick gives her a special smile, thankful that she’s gotten herself onto something like an even keel now, that she felt able to come here today, and be smiling back at him. 

But then he stops. Which you’re really not supposed to do while walking down the aisle, apparently. Jessica walks into his back, and he stumbles at the unexpected shunt. There’s a little murmur from the assembled company. It’s laughter. They knew Patrick would fuck this up somehow. So he grins at the assholes he loves, and walks the rest of the way up the aisle, keeping his reeling surprise strictly internal. 

Jonny’s here. With something in the seat beside him that Patrick really hopes isn’t the actual Stanley Cup. Gussied up for the wedding, like he’s a guest, though he’s not smiling like one. Not that Patrick invited him, _obviously_ , but he’s sitting with the friends like he belongs. Maybe he’s someone’s plus-one. Wouldn’t that be amazing, Jonny dating one of Patrick’s friends? Jesus, is his collar tightening? Erica plucks at his hand, stilling it. “It’s going to-“ she starts, and then something classy and classical starts on the player and Sean steps out into the aisle in his turn. 

He looks damn fine. Well turned out, glittering with triumph and joy. Patrick tries to focus on him, but it’s Jonny’s face he keeps seeing. Everyone else is focused on Sean, but there’s Jonny Toews’s dead eyes staring Patrick down instead. Like he thinks Patrick’s making an enormous mistake. Like he should know what that feels like.

But it’s too late. It really is. Wheels are in motion. Sean’s hand is grasping Patrick’s, putting pressure on his wrist right where the scar is. Patrick flinches, and tries to hide it, and the celebrant starts speaking words that are absolutely goddam familiar at this point in his life. 

“…now ask whether anyone knows of any reason why these two men should not get married today…” says the celebrant, confidently, not expecting to pause.

“Well, yeah,” says a voice. 

It isn’t Jonny, is Patrick’s first thought. Well, clearly, since it’s female voice. A nice light one, with plenty of tone, not like Jonny’s flat mumble. God, Patrick loves that flat mumble, and this is not the thing to be focusing on now, oh my god Patrick. 

Erica – of course it’s Erica – carries on, “Pretty sure it’ll be a disaster.”

The celebrant starts pointing out that that isn’t actually a reason (which explains so much about divorce rates, Patrick thinks, waiting for the other shoe to drop). Erica barrels on, dropping, like, a dozen shoes. “Because Patrick is just grasping at this because he thinks it should happen. He has stupidly low self-esteem, you know. I guess maybe it’s that whole dream-career-taken-from-you deal. Anyway, he’s just doing this for desperation. And because he’s in love with someone else, who he doesn’t think will love him back. And that’s the truth.”

Patrick is trying to look at anyone but Sean. He knows this must be awful to hear, although he can’t quite bring himself to stop her from saying it. All that truth. It means he’s looking out over Erica’s shoulder, with the whole audience laid out before him. By some quirk of seating, Patrick’s closest friends are perfectly framed behind Erica, and so he sees Jonny’s head jerk up when Erica says that. Sees Jonny’s intense focus come to bear on Patrick, probably the only person in the building who isn’t staring at Erica right now. Jonny’s mouth opens, and he mouths, “Really?” Hand to his chest. Intensely, staring at Patrick like he’s asking the most important question in the world. 

Which is unfortunate as that’s who Patrick is speaking to when the celebrant asks him, “Is this true, Patrick? Because if it is-“

“Yes,” says Patrick. “Yes, it really is.” 

Sean still plays for his beer league team. He’s kind of the enforcer, when he’s in the mood. So when he turns to face Patrick and slugs him one, there’s a lot of power behind it. 

Patrick sees actual stars. 

*

He gets discharged pretty quick. Which is a shame because it means the thousands of asshole sisters and friends who gathered at Erica’s house for the autopsy haven’t dispersed by the time Patrick takes his non-broken-cheekbone and non-concussed brain back there. 

It’s not like he has another home to go to. This is not the moment to ask Sean about giving up their shared tenancy on the apartment. Patrick has fucked up enough timings today. That one will wait. His brain flinches away from even thinking about what he just did to Sean. 

He can’t even shout, his head hurts so bad, but luckily everyone is shouting for him. Partly at Erica, for her timing, but mostly at Patrick for being a heartless asshole, and also for leaving it so late to realise what he needed to do, and- 

He tries to zone out, although every word of it is true. Sean is not Patrick’s soulmate, but no one deserves that. Patrick mostly tries to think of himself as a pretty good guy, albeit one with astoundingly poor timekeeping skills. But this? This was genuinely appalling. 

The doorbell rings. Hopefully it might be pizza. More probably it’s another friend or relative come to join the shouting. He drags himself off the couch to head it off; Erica has taken more than enough of this today, and she definitely doesn’t deserve it.

It is not pizza. It’s not even a foodstuff. It’s Jonny, still in most of his wedding gear. Followed by a dude carrying the goddamn Stanley Cup, it really is. But Patrick can’t focus on that right now. Twice as desirable as anyone Patrick has ever met, and definitely not someone he should be talking to today. 

“What did the hospital say?” Jonny demands, before Patrick even invites him in. And suddenly Patrick doesn’t want to invite him in, not to that maelstrom of blame. 

He jerks his head, towards the green city street where Erica has set up home. He always liked this area. It feels like family. Jonny nods, and falls into step as Patrick starts walking through the neighbourhood. No plan. Followed by Cup Dude, who seems to be on a mission to make this whole thing ridiculous.

“Nothing broken,” he says, and Jonny grills him about concussion protocols, which Patrick supposes is natural in a dude with a history of head injuries. 

Eventually, he’s satisfied. “Well, good,” he says, stopping in the middle of the sidewalk, and turning Patrick’s bruised cheek toward him. “You went down like you’d been boarded.”

“He took me by surprise!” Patrick protests. 

Jonny’s look turns stern and captainly. “You didn’t think he’d react to you saying that?”

“I wasn’t saying it to him,” Patrick throws back. And stops. Fuck. Fucking fuck. A kid passing on his bike stops and stares at them. The Cup, and the Hawks’ captain, right here on his street.

Jonny is looking at him with the intensity Patrick always expects from him. But the sternness is softening a little. He hums a little. “No… I guess I knew that. I mean, I brought the Cup to your wedding, to, yanno, bring you luck. But I think I already knew, or, hoped maybe-” He stutters to a halt. 

“It’s stupid,” says Patrick. Blurts, really. He has to get it out, having made that much of a fool of himself. “I barely even know you. I’m not a pretty girl who’ll look good in family pictures. You’d never dare let me near the media-“ 

The kid is on his cell now, and has been joined by two other people. Also staring. Cup Dude has put the Stanley Cup down, and is looking warily around for potential touchers.

“You’re a fucking idiot,” says Jonny. Sweetly, like it’s an endearment. “But so was I. It took me forever to get my head out of my ass, and I hurt you and a lot of other people because of it. But I’m done living my life the way other people think I have to. I’m going to live it for me. And I want you in it.”

A car pulls up beside the kids in the street. There’s a Blackhawks sticker on the rear bumper. The dude inside is also staring. 

Patrick says, desperately, “I’m never going to get married. Pretty sure I proved today I’m not fit for it.”

“Who said anything about marriage?” Jonny returns. “Wait till you’re asked, eh?”

Patrick actually laughs at that. Laughs a lot. Jonny’s face softens a whole lot in return. He grips Patrick’s hand, continuing. “But, let’s try it, okay? Really try it. Who even knows if it’ll work out, but there’s one way it never, ever will, and that’s if we never give it a shot.” He draws Patrick in even closer, and there’s no way anyone watching this is going to think this is a platonic conversation now. 

Every single person on this block now seems to be watching them. At least five people are filming them. One is wearing a Hawks jersey. 

Patrick says, “I’m a natural PR disaster. And people film you every day of your life. They’re doing it right now. This is going to follow you around forever, Jonny.”

“Are they filming?” says Jonny, goofy as fuck. “I hadn’t noticed.” 

Patrick just has to kiss him for that. And then he has to keep right on kissing. Fuck the cameras.

***


End file.
